


Toys In The Attic

by CalamityCain



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Angst, Bondage, Child Abuse, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Fever, Hurt/Comfort, Murder, Non-Consensual Bondage, Sibling Incest, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 05:58:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15479139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalamityCain/pseuds/CalamityCain
Summary: To her he was the embodiment of perfection: the one beautiful, whole thing in a life shaped by fear and hate. And nothing would tear her from his side. A tale of damaged hands, forbidden touches, murder, sex, bondage and a consuming, possessive love.





	Toys In The Attic

She found him among the scattered wooden toys, among the lolling heads of broken manikins, following the sound of a soft weeping that does not want to be heard yet cries out for comfort all the same.

 

“Thomas?”  
  


He could never hide from her for long. Her heart shattered when she saw what Father had done to his hands.

 

“Thomas, how _could he?_ ”

 

Her brother did not answer. He did not have to. Sickened as they both were at this new demonstration of cruelty, they had known scant else, and she feared that with each passing year their hearts blackened a little more. Hers was a dark and thorny thing. But not Thomas’. Lord preserve him, at least, and keep him pure. It was all she asked for anymore of a cruel, distant God.

 

She cradled him to her breast, and he allowed himself to sob without restraint into the familiar strength of her scent, her flesh, the hardness of the bones beneath.

 

With great care she bandaged his ruined hands. At the age of fifteen, Lucille was a skilled nurse, having tended Mother’s wounds more times than she could count. Lady Beatrice received her husband’s blows first-hand, the children suffering scorn and neglect more than physical force. But this one time, the scorn had bloomed into loathing, and loathing into a despicable act meant to teach his only son a lesson he would not soon forget.

 

“I’m being as gentle as I can,” she said as he flinched each time she pulled on the gauze. “Be strong.”

 

“He s-said my hands w-were too delicate. That I s-spent too much time making useless d-dolls instead of l-l-learning to be a man,” Thomas stammered as tears fell anew at the memory of his father’s whip-like words. Just before the polished oak cane had come crashing down onto his fingers. “I told him I m-made them for you. To make you happy. What is wrong w-with that…?”

 

“Shhh. He is a cruel fool if he cannot see your talent.” She kissed him, stroked his dark curls. “I would rather you became anything else than a despicable man like _him._ ”

 

She meant every word. Lucille could spin lies as easily as breathe, but the one person she could not – _would_ not – lie to was her little brother. To her he was the embodiment of perfection: the one beautiful, whole thing in a life shaped by fear and hate. Beautiful Thomas, with eyes like the blue of a clear summer sea and a finely boned face framed by dark waves that curled perfectly down the nape of his neck. She ran her hands down that face the way she had done countless times. “I will take care of you,” she whispered, fierce with devotion.

 

“You always have.” He tilted his head to kiss the palm of the hand cradling his cheek. He would have liked her to keep holding him, but her hands left as a sharp call from below cut through the air.

 

“Duty calls,” said Lucille with more than a tinge of bitterness. “Dry your tears now, my darling. I will be back.”

 

If Father’s abuse was dealt in blows, Mother’s was handed out in manipulative hisses and guilt-inducing barbs that poisoned her children even while binding them to her. She had been the one to decree that they be confined to the nursery, and later the attic, until Lucille was nearly thirteen. They were let out by their sympathetic nurse only after she retired to bed (the poor lady was let go of shortly after without so much as a recommendation). In spiteful quiet joy they had roamed the nooks and crannies of Allerdale Hall. Safe from the fearsome king and spiteful queen who ruled the daytime, the nights belonged to them.

 

Now that they were allowed to occupy it more freely, the dark belonged to them still.

 

That night she slipped into Thomas’ bedroom, knowing he would be more clingy and anxious than usual. In truth, she did not mind. Lucille needed to be needed. And she loved falling asleep breathing in her baby brother’s sweet smell.

 

But there would be no falling asleep just yet. First, she had to help him undress. His inflamed hands and fingers made even simple tasks laborious. She unhooked the buttons of his vest and shirt, slipped off his trousers and stockings, admiring the finely shaped limbs and the soft skin that had managed to escape the lashes of their childhood. She had taken most of them, after all. She had borne them so that her darling brother could remain perfect and unscarred.

 

“Lie down now.”

 

He shivered beneath her gaze. “Help me put on my nightshirt, Lucy.”

 

“Not yet.” She ran a hand down his torso. “Let me look at you.” _You are the one beautiful thing in my life,_ she wanted to say, the words spilling out instead in the form of soft touches in forbidden places. Her fingers brushed his nipples, turning them into rosy peaks. She gently rocked her hips against his, imagining them as boats on a storm-ridden sea, rocking to the rhythm of the waves. He gasped when his sex swelled and curved against hers.

 

“Does that feel good?” she whispered.

 

“Yes…I…I don’t know.”

 

“I turn sixteen next year,” she spoke softly into the velvet dark. “Old enough to be considered for betrothal, if not marriage. Mother and Father will be glad to be rid of me. If they can find a suitor.” She slid off her underthings so he could feel the moistening cleft between her thighs. “By next year, I may belong to someone else. But I don’t _want_ to. I want to be yours, and yours alone.”

 

She leaned down to kiss him – on the lips this time, as she had done only once before. This time was deeper, hotter, parting his pretty mouth with hers so she could revel in its depths. “Will you be mine?”

 

“I’ve always been yours, Lucy.” He turned thirteen in two weeks, but his voice was so child-like it hurt. “Always.”

 

“Will you do anything for me?”

 

“Yes.”

 

She dipped two fingers into the part that had become a source of shame because she touched it with Thomas’ name on her lips. She slid them into his mouth, and in his surprise he did not resist. “Suck them clean.”

 

He obeyed, as she knew he would. “What does that m – ”

 

“It means I love you.” She fed him more of her fluids, relishing the way he suckled obediently like a babe at its mother’s nipple. It inflamed her with growing need, and she took his sex in hand to guide it to her own.

 

“Lucille, we shouldn’t – ”

 

“Shush. It’s alright.” Her breaths were quickening as she felt his cockhead rub against her sensitive nub perfectly. As if they were meant to be.

 

“I don’t want to…”  
  


“You said you’d do anything for me.”

 

His flush was visible even in the dim light of a lone candle. “Do you take it back?” she asked, her voice high and hard with longing, with guilt. For once, the guilt would be his as well. She could not – would not – bear it alone.

 

“No,” he said at last.

 

“Good. I love you, Thomas. My brother. My baby.” She kissed him again, and then took his cock into her slicked folds. They both gasped, and then they were panting and spilling sounds that were as new to them as the shock of the intense pleasure coursing through their bodies. He was powerless to push her away; his damaged hands lay uselessly on either side of his head. And besides, whatever his mind kept screaming, it _felt_ right.

 

He began keening as he neared some terrible, wonderful peak entirely new to his untried body. Lucille clamped a hand over his mouth to stop him from making too much noise. It was both frightening and thrilling to be so dominated: her other hand pinning him down, her hips dictating the rhythm at which they thrust into each other. He was overwhelmed by her strength, her scent, her hot breath washing over him. The dizzying sensation reached a crescendo and his body spasmed and every nerve in his body grew so taut he thought he might snap in half and die.

 

He might have passed out. He did not know. When he came to, they were in each other’s arms, urgent breaths slowing into a pleasantly heavy rhythm. At her nudging, he turned around so she could cradle him without crushing his bandaged hands. He felt her pull the thick blankets over them as sleep crept up upon him.

 

“Mother mustn’t find out,” he mumbled into the pillow.

 

“She won’t,” whispered Lucille. “But if she does, I’ll kill her.”

  

~

 

They had made love next to their mother’s dead body. If such a forceful, twisted affair could be called love. But then, what other kind had they ever known?

 

He had tried to run from the horror. Doubtless, the sight of a cleaver through the old harridan’s head as she lay in a bloodied bathtub was enough to drive anyone to flee. But there would be no fleeing for them; Lucille would make sure of that. For the first time in her life, she hit him. When he tried to escape, to call for the authorities, she had flown at him and beat him till he was nearly unconscious.

 

“No one will part us,” she sobbed as she tied him up with strips of curtain and the silk from their dead mother’s gown. “We stay, and we face what we have done: put a fitting end to a horrid woman’s life. If anyone asks, we are victims of what she put us through.”

 

Then she kissed him and tore off his clothes and fucked him on the cold tile floor, as if ritualistically sealing a pact, damning him, making him share in her damnation. He had watched in frightened fascination when he grew hard for her despite the grotesqueness of their predicament. He felt the heat of their obscene transgression even as he spilt his seed into her inviting cunt. The tangle of emotions – relief at being free of their mother’s tyranny, shock, horror, a growing anxiety at what would happen to them now – pushed him to the edge where madness awaited beyond. As for poor Lucille, she toppled off the edge and never came back.

 

When it was over, she slapped him for crying.

 

“Don’t you dare shed tears for that bitch,” she hissed. Maddened by his sobs, she gagged him with the same fabric as the one binding his limbs, and left him struggling with muffled whimpers just a few feet away from the bloody Lady Beatrice.

 

 _Don’t leave me, Lucy!_ he wanted to yell. He hated what she had done, hated how she had stained them both with murder – yet he could not hate _her._ He knew just how the long years of loathing and the outraged discovery of their forbidden affair had led to the cleaver being buried in his mother’s head. Every sin Lucille had ever committed was for love. For him.

 

Strains of her hysterical laughter echoed through the corridors. He thought he heard her weeping softly in between before the mad laughing bubbled back up. It was a long while before she fell silent.

 

He would have borne her peals of insanity gladly, in place of the terrible sound he heard next.

 

A death-rattle, and a click-clack of nails on cracked porcelain.

 

His back was turned to the horrific sight. But he could swear he heard his mother’s fingernails gripping the side of the tub, hear her wheezing inhalations as she struggled to come back to life.

 

 _Lucille?_ whimpered the child inside him. _Lucy, come back. Please._

 

The wheeze was growing stronger now. Surely it was only the creak of the perpetually rusty pipes.

 

_Lucy, help me!_

 

Click. Clack. Click.

_Goddamnit, Lucy, come back and kill her properly!_

 

Both of them had always had overly vivid imaginations, fed by years of making up their own stories and a lack of interaction with other children. When he heard a groan that sounded all too much like Beatrice’ ghost rising to sink her claws into him, he screamed into the wadded cloth until he hyperventilated and passed out.

 

He came to in bed and with the heat of fever stinging his eyes. Lucille was fretting over him, patting his face with a damp cloth.

 

“Poor Tommy,” she cooed, voice brittle with unshed tears. “I shouldn’t have put you through that. Knowing how delicate you are.” A cool kiss brushed his forehead. “I’ll take care of you, don’t worry. We’ll take care of each other now. We have to.”

 

“What about Mother…?” His throat felt raw from screaming, each word an effort.

 

“I covered it up. Put on a real sob story; you know how the police are weakened by a weeping damsel.” She put on a smile. “Don’t you worry about it. Rest now.”

 

She pushed a small bowl of broth to his lips, gently urging him to down it all. She watched him briefly fight and then succumb to the valerian she had liberally laced it with. He was so pretty, her sleeping child. She could stay here watching him forever. But there were things to be done. Tidying, cleaning, hiding away.

 

She was mistress of the manor now. And she must decide its future.

 

Above them, the magnificent decay of Allerdale Hall had already begun. The first snowfall of winter leaked through a tiny hole in the vaulted roof that in the coming years would grow into a gaping wound. Moths and dying insects fluttered in the corners where lurked echoes of things best forgotten. In the brightest, airiest corner of the attic reserved for Thomas’ little workshop, half-finished toys sat amidst delicate clockwork contraptions.

 

The house would stand. Lucille would make sure of it. No ghost or vengeful past would tear them apart. She knew now that she could kill for love. And she could do it again, and again. To protect the boy with the broken hands and broken toys. Her darling brother. Her only love, to the end of life.


End file.
